Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 06:27:43 -0600 (MDT) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990608 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Tuesday, June 8, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Frieman Richards DIS 6/8-9 21:51 01:10 McCandliss McCandliss DIS,echelle 6/9 01:10 03:29 Turner McMillan SPIcam 6/9 03:59 04:14 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UC10/R 21:51 01:10 0 - 0 - 3.3 - 0 0 - JH07/S 01:10 03:44 0 0 0 0 1.8 0.8 0 0 - PU03/S 03:44 04:14 - 0 - 0 - 0.5 0 - 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- * Indicates that a problem report has been issued. Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The weather was clear, with decent (1.2") seeing during first half. Shortly after midnight, the wind shifted east again, with the same effect on dust, humidity, and seeing as seen last night -- only this time, the windspeed was lower, so the increases in dewpoint, dust, etc. were not as extreme. A few minor schedule changes are reflected above. There was an error in the paper copy of the observing schedule, which would have required PU03 to start 16 minutes after ending. On the assumption that half an hour was planned for PU03, we went by the online schedule, and JH07 ended at 03:29. JH07 also elected to start with an exposure using DIS, which meant that the changeover between UC10 and JH07 occurred instantaneously at 01:10, and JH07 absorbed all ten minutes of the time required to change to the echelle. The only instrument difficulty we had were two refusals to make a pointing correction while the echelle was running. The image was taken, and the pointing star was there, but the automatic pointing correction did not detect any stars. It might have been because the pointing star was near the edge of the field (although the gscansize was 0.1, larger than the chip size), or because the star was saturating and difficult to centroid (although we were using ND2, and I've never seen that cause a problem before). I saved one image where it claimed to see no star; it's in /export/images/guider/gSav01.fits. OBSERVER COMMENTS G. Richards (UC10): Observing went quite smoothly. Took spectra of some fairly faint SDSS sources. Nothing exciting to report at this time though. FOCUS LOG June 8 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:40 slitcam -30(6818) -58 63 15.8/17.3 271 19 -- ~1.3 01:55 echelle -73(5605) 267 58 10.3/10.6 132 12 clear 1.83 03:45 SPIcam -130(6382) 118 41 10.3/9.6 132 14 g' 1.77 WEATHER LOG June 8 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 70 37 28 213 (SSW) 2553 clear none 17:01 69 24 25 238 (WSW) 1678 clear none 18:01 69 18 20 199 (SSW) 1354 clear none 19:01 66 16 13 235 (SW) 1351 clear none 20:01 61 6 13 264 (W) 1937 clear none 21:01 60 1 6 287 (WNW) 2145 clear none 22:01 58 -1 7 271 (W) 1585 clear none 23:01 58 -3 7 272 (W) 1413 clear none 00:01 56 0 4 193 (SSW) 1452 clear none 01:01 54 34 8 125 (SE) 2211 clear none 02:01 51 37 5 101 (E) 2035 clear none 03:01 50 36 5 114 (ESE) 2016 clear none 04:01 51 34 2 98 (E) 1840 clear none 05:01 50 33 5 144 (SE) 1793 clear none 06:01 51 24 4 194 (SSW) 1731 clear none used is north=0 degrees, east=90 degrees. The dust count is for the particles > 1 micron per 0.1 cu.ft. TELESCOPE STATUS Primary, secondary, and tertiary mirrors in place and collimated. Primary support system operational. Mirror ventilation system in place. Telescope drives operational. Current Remark version: 2.55b5 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 18.out - RM